Phew, that was fast!
Tuesday night’s primary election results rolled in a lot quicker than anticipated, ending some races outright and teeing up what few competitive general elections Maryland is going to have this fall.
Wednesday dawned with the Senate Majority PAC, a group affiliated with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), hitting former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) for being endorsed by Arizona’s leading MAGA Republican, Kari Lake, who congratulated Hogan on social media and said she looked forward to serving with him in the Senate. Hogan later Wednesday announced the formation of a group called Democrats for Hogan, which will be co-chaired by former Baltimore County state Sen. Bobby Zirkin.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but that, in a nutshell, describes what the state’s marquee U.S. Senate race is going to look like over the next 5 1/2 months. Democrats will try to tie Hogan to the most extreme elements of the GOP. Hogan will try to remind voters how much he loves Democrats and independents — and vice-versa.
But before we go too far down that road, it’s worth pointing out that Tuesday’s primary election reordered the state’s political dynamic in many ways, as so many of these election nights do. So it seemed right to once again tally the winners and losers from the primary. Some are obvious — others less so.
